Sep 14, 20205 min read

Apple Week at Peterson Academy

I decided to switch up my approach for our second week of homeschooling. I felt like a weekly theme would be a more manageable way for me to plan the week's activities. What I decided to do was pick a theme, this week was apples, and then I just complied a list of activities that would do during the week. Each day I would pick a few activities! I did try to make sure I had a mixture of art, math, reading, and writing activities so that we would hit multiple subject areas.

Here is what we did this week!

Monday

We started off our apple week by activating our prior knowledge about apples and made a poster! I asked the girls, "What do you know about apples"? Here is what they came up with! After the poster was completed, I hung it on our homeschool wall and the girls did some apple coloring.

The girls ended up spending the afternoon at my parents house and my mom made an apple pie with Ellie! What a great and delicious lesson. My parents are super supportive and excited about homeschooling this year and they are eager to incorporate what we are learning when the girls are at their house.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, we started off by coloring our cover page for our apple journal. I thought it would be fun to create a journal where the kids could glue their work into. I just took a few very large pages of construction paper to create this book. Then I googled "apple coloring page", put that image into Canva and added their name. They colored it and glued it to the front. After that, Ellie and I worked on labeling the parts of an apple and glued that worksheet into her journal. You can get an apple labeling printable here. While we did that, Layla colored apples pages. I always ask Layla, who's 3, if she wants to the activity with us. If she says yes, great. If she doesn't, then I try to a simple activity for her to do (usually coloring) or she just plays on her own.

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After that, we just had to get a real apple just had to cut it open to look at its parts! The girls really enjoyed picking the seeds out of the core and eating the flesh! While we were doing this I kept asking Ellie what part was what...repetition repetition repetition!

We then decided to take a break and do a Costco run! After we came back the girls relaxed with a movie. I found this informative and entertaining video on Youtube about how apples go from the orchard to the factory and then to the grocery store. (Now Ellie is hooked on Blippli! )

The last activity for the day was an apple math game. I purchased an apple mini unit for a couple dollars from Teachers Pay Teachers. In this packet was a math game. To play, Ellie had to roll two dice (in our case we have a dice inside a dice). She had to add up the numbers and find the number on the game board. I gave her the choice of crossing it off with a whiteboard marker (since I put it in a protective sleeve) or using game chips.

Ok, I lied...that wasn't our last activity! We did a little apple tasting! I created an apple rating chart that Ellie glued into her journal. Every time we try a different apple, she colors it to match the apple and then she rates it. We also write down words that describe it. You can download the apple rating chart below.

Wednesday

True transparency.... we did not get a lot of school stuff done on Wednesday. We had a rough day filled with fighting and arguing kids and a frustrated crabby mom! We made multiple attempts to reset our moods, but not much seemed to work. We did get some apple tasting in and also made some apple sun catchers. I used contact paper and tissue paper from the Dollar Tree.

Thursday

Thursday was a brand new day and it went much smoother. Ellie and I started off the school day talking about apple vocabulary and she practiced writing a few words. Then we made an Apple Life Cycle booklet. We talked about how an apple tree grows and Ellie labeled each part of the cycle. I got this from the Apple mini bundle I mentioned above.

Next came the mother of all activities! My girls, partularly Layla (3), LOVED LOVED LOVED this easy activity. We went on an apple number hunt! I created a document with nine apples and each apple had a number (1-9). Then I created another document with larger apples and each apple had dots. I printed the large apples on cardstock and colored each one a different color (didn't want to use all the colored printer ink!). I cut them out and laminated them with laminating pouches and my iron.

I LOVE these so so so much! Here is my referral link!

Then, I taped the large apples with the dots around the house and my girls had to take their clipboard with their answer sheet and match the numbers. If they came to the apple with two dots, they had to find the number two (in written form) and color it according to the color they found. OMG! They LOVED this, especially my three year old. You can download them below for FREE!

Check it out!

Looking back, apparently Thursday was fun filled and busy day! We incorporated some art into our week with apple painting! I love to get rolls of brown craft paper for all sorts of things at our house. I get them at Dollar Tree and they are great for painting on, protecting tables, and wrapping boxes! I got a few colors of paint out and cut a few apples in half, stuck a fork in each one and the girls created apple trees!

Friday

We didn't do a whole lot of apple stuff Friday. Ellie started the day with some self directed writing in her little journal. I made a word wall of all the high frequency words she knows so far and she decided to use those words to make sentences. At this point they are not sentences yet, but she is starting to learn how to put words together to make meaning.

We also took our weekly trip the library on Friday. We found a few apple books and decided on next week's theme: DINOSAURS!

Sunday

To wrap up our apple week, we took a trip to a local apple orchard! We checked out the apple trees, had some apple cider donuts, and apple cider! Oh......and pumpkins!!

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